All sixty works of art from the auction were sold, more than half of which were estimated in advance for a higher amount. On Wednesday evening, the works of art by Paul Cézanne, Georges Seurat, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin and Gustav Klimt each went under the hammer for more than 100 million dollars. A new auction record was set for each of these artists. The highlight of this record rain was a canvas by Georges Seurat which was hammered away for 149 million euros.
The auction of Allen’s collection will take place in two parts. Another 95 works of art by Frank Stella, Gerhard Richter and René Magritte will be auctioned on Thursday. Auction house Christie’s expected in advance that the collection of Paul Allen (of a total of 155 works of art) would yield around 1 billion euros in total. That would be a huge hit, because the record for an art auction, set in November last year, was 600 million euros. Now it was already at lot 32 passed the 1 billion euro mark.
Prior to the auction, the artworks were briefly on display in New York. Some 20,000 people took the opportunity to view the collection before the artworks may be included in private collections. Allen, who co-founded Microsoft in 1975 with Bill Gates, died four years ago at the age of 65 from the effects of lymphoma. His net worth was estimated at $21.7 billion by Forbes magazine. The entire proceeds of the art collection, which covers a period of five centuries, go to charities. Allen’s descendants have not disclosed which charities are involved.
The second part of the auction (works of art with considerably smaller price tags) took place at the end of the day on Thursday, the results were not yet known at the time of writing.
Most expensive Van Gogh auctioned
Orchard with cypress trees Vincent van Gogh was hammered on Wednesday for 117 million euros. Van Gogh painted the scene in the spring of 1888 in Arles. The artist then painted a total of fourteen canvases with fruit trees or orchards in bloom. A another canvas from this series is in the collection of the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo. The painting from Paul Allen’s collection was last exhibited in 2010, during a Van Gogh exhibition in London.